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Congressional candidates, King speak with Iowans at RNC

September 4, 2008 By

Congressman Steve King at Republican National Convention. Earlier today, two candidates for congress spent a few moments speaking to Iowans at the Republican National Convention, telling personal stories to connect with their audience.

Neither Kim Schmett of Des Moines nor David Hartsuch of Bettendorf has raised much money for their campaign and neither is listed as a favorite to unseat the Democratic congressman they’re running against. Schmett, the Republican candidate in the third district, spent some time talking about a Scotch/Irish ancestor who settled on this continent before the American Revolution.

"My ancestor, who was a minister, pulled his small congregation together out in the foothills of South Carolina, had a sermon one Sunday and he said, ‘You know, we moved here for freedom…There’s a time to pray and there’s a time to fight.’ Most of the guys left the service that day and they went off and they ended up forming a guerrilla unit and we ended up winning the resolution," Schmett said "My guy spent the next year and a half in a British prinson. I’m not asking you to do that but the point is, folks, we’re at a point right now in our life where it really matters."

Schmett argued this is an election like no other. "Everything that you and I have believed in, our culutral values, the basics that our American way of life is built around is being questioned this year," Schmett said.

Hartsuch, the Republican candidate in the third district, admits he "threw a curve ball" to the Iowa Republicans this morning by revealing he models himself after the late Paul Wellstone, the Democratic U,.S. Senator from Minnesota who was killed in a plane crash. "I am a right-winger, there’s no doubt about it," Hartsuch told reporters afterwards. "Paul Wellstone, I do believe, did reflect a very high level of service and I think people respect that. Regardless of whether you’re from the left or the right or the center, people want to know that the people you’re electing to office are going to be representing everybody, not just special interests."

Hartsuch, an E.R. doctor in the Quad Cities, lived in Minneapolis for 15 years and had a personal encounter with Wellstone that involving a mentally ill patient who threatened Wellstone’s life. "While I disagree with (Wellstone) on his policy — he definitely was somebody who fostered collectivism whereas I believe I foster more individualism, nonetheless I could never doubt his integrity or his devotion to our society," Hartsuch told reporters.

Some of the Republicans in this morning’s audience, though, gasped and one man loudly said, ‘Geez,’ when Hartsuch praised Wellstone. "I see the look already. I can guarantee you that from a policy standpoint, I am no Paul Wellstone," Hartsuch told the crowd.

A Republican in the audience replied: "Good."

Hartsuch continued: "However, there was some attribute of Paul Wellstone that I believe every elected official should emulate and that is the desire and the care for the individual person. He had a heart for people that you would not believe."

Hartsuch said in his first two years as a state senator, he’s tried to act in that spirit. "There was a young was a young gentleman who was mentally retarded….and I don’t mean to do this to mock him, but" Hartsuch said, before mimicing the man’s voice: "I can’t speak for myself. I need you to advocate for me."

Hartsuch continued in his own voice: "And that really touched me that day because I realized there is no lobbying group for him. There’s no special interest money for him and if anyone was going to care for him, it had to be me."

Congressman Steve King, a Republican from Kiron, was the third on the list of morning speakers, spending most of his time focused on the McCain/Palin match-up against Obama/Biden. "I propose this: Let’s put our ticket up against the other side…Put those two up there and give them a 30-06 and we’ll put John McCain, our top gun up against crackshot Sarah Palin or those two together against Obama and Biden and we’ll settle this thing," King said. "Who’s the best shot?"

King called Palin a "real" conservative who "nailed" her speech last night. "We’ve needed a strong, conservative leader," King said of Palin. "I’ve said for a long time I’d vote for Margaret Thatcher if she were American." Margaret Thatcher, nicknamed the "Iron Lady," was Britian’s prime minister from 1979 to 1990. But King’s comparisons didn’t stop there. 

"Hockey mom extraordinairre," King said of Palin, before launching into a baseball metaphor. "She took that pitch that came right down the middle of the plate. She cracked it out of the park. She drilled a 10. She’s our Shawn Johnson." Johnson is the 16-year-old gymnast from West Des Moines who won gold and silver medals in the Olympics and went to Denver last Thursday to lead the Pledge of Allegiance at the Democratic National Convention.

Click on the audio links below to hear all of what King, Hartsuch and Schmett had to say this morning.

AUDIO: Schmett speech. 4:40 MP3
AUDIO: Hartsuch speech (mp3 runs 14 min)
AUDIO: King speech (mp3 runs 23 min)

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Iowa man, Lincoln impersonator, performs in Minnesota

September 4, 2008 By

Lance Mack as Lincoln Iowa delegates at the Republican National Convention heard the words of an Illinois senator this morning.

No, Barack Obama, the senator from Illinois who is the Democratic Party’s 2008 presidential candidate, wasn’t there. But Lance Mack of Marion, Iowa, spoke the words of former Ilinois Senator Abraham Lincoln.

Mack is a tall, thin man who looks a bit like the 16th American president and he quickly took off his black, “stove pipe” hat and gestured to the microphones in front of him. 

“We didn’t need these things when I was campaigning,” Mack said, impersonating Lincoln. “All I needed was a strong voice.”

Mack has been appearing at the “Civic Fest” this week at the Minneapolis Convention Center. As you may recall, Abraham Lincoln was the Republican Party’s second-ever presidential nominee in 1860 and Lincoln won re-election in 1864.

Mack recounted a portion of a speech Lincoln delivered when he was 28 years old, just after he’d moved to Springfield, Illinois. ”My friends, we live in a nation which was founded with a government not of men, but of laws,” Mack recited. “Let therefore reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother and father to the lisping babe that prattles upon their laps.”

The Ohio delegation — yes, Ohio, not Iowa — invited the Lincoln impersonator to sit with them on the convention floor last night. Mack was dressed as Lincoln.

After Mack spoke this morning, an Iowan offered him some advice: “avoid the theaters.”

 

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GOP candidate: reform or repeal "No Child Left Behind"

September 4, 2008 By

State Senator David Hartsuch, the Republican candidate in Iowa’s first congressional district, says the federal “No Child Left Behind” Law isn’t working. ”I believe that ‘No Child Left Behind’ has universal disfavor with the public,” Hartsuch says.

“Both Republicans and Democrats, if you look at the grassroots, really do not like ‘No Child Left Behind.’ The concept was a very top-down approach where we have centralized testing and we’re doing resource allocation decisions based on this testing.”

Hartsuch, who is from Bettendorf, has asked Iowa’s attorney general to review the law and its impact on Iowa school districts. ”I believe in Davenport, as an example, we have excellent teachers, administrators, curriculum, we have good facilities, but I believe we have 240 homeless kids in Daveport and to say that that does not negatively impact education would be a real stretch,” Hartsuch says.

 ”It does negatively impact educational attatinment and I do believe that those disadvantaged communities are having their resources stripped from them unnecessarily because of ‘No Child Left Behind.’”

Hartsuch says the law should be reformed or repealed, something President Bush, a fellow Republican, has resisted as Bush pushed for the law which is modeled after testing requirements in place in Texas when he was governor there.

Hartsuch says Democrats like Congressman Bruce Braley of Waterloo, his opponent in November, should have challenged Bush on this issue. ”The Democrats have put up a lot more legislation that Bush would veto. They could take the leadership and put this up and let Bush veto the program, but the truth of the matter is the Democrats in power like this just as much as Bush did because it was put forward in a bipartisan way,” Hartsuch says. “The problem is we’ve had the Washington insiders put this program together with an elitist point of view without consideration of what it means for the teachers on the ground.”

A spokesman for Congressman Braley was not immediately available for comment. During his first campaign for congress in 2006, Braley criticized the “No Child Left Behind” Law.

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Iowa Republicans rally around Palin

September 4, 2008 By

Iowa Republicans are rallying around Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s running mate. On Wednesday morning, the McCain campaign dispatched several speakers to relay a message to Iowans gathered at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota.

“You have a voice, ladies and gentleman, and America needs to hear that voice.” former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele told the Iowans. “The press needs to hear that voice — that we will not stand for it.”

Steele told Iowans the media had “kicked and belittled” Palin. “The way this governor, this mother, this leader, this wife, this coach is being treated by the American press is embarassing, It is wrong.”

One Iowan shouted “Amen.” The group of Iowans whistled and clapped when Steele first mentioned her name. “Now, I just have one very straight up, simple thing to say about Sarah Palin. I know Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin is a friend of mine,” Steele said. “You don’t want to mess with Sarah Palin.”

Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, a graduate of Bloomfield, Iowa’s High School, told Iowans McCain has a “soulmate” in Palin. “I don’t know if you saw his announcement with Governor Palin, but I could see the glint in his eye,” Kyl said. “He was reenergized about being able to take this campaign, this crusade to reform government, with a soulmate — somebody who like John has opposed wasteful spending.”

Eighty-three-year-old Bud Day of Sioux City is the a retired colonel who first met McCain inside a Vietnamese prison camp. The two have remained close friends and confidants — and Day says McCain did the right thing in picking Palin. “What you really need in a running mate is kind of like a wife,” Day says. “You need somebody that you can be compatible with and who can run your household and be your friend, but you also have to have somebody that’ll tell you when you’re doing something wrong and someone who can give you some constructive ideas and constructive criticism, and I think this woman can do all of that.”

Iowa delegate Diana Hansen of Victor is a Palin fan. “I think she’ll do great. She seems to be fearless…she’s a hunter,” Hansen says. “…She can handle it and I think she can handle the pressure on her family, too, and I wish they’d just lay off, whoever’s criticizing and publicizing this. It must be all lies. It’s unfair, but that’s the way life is.”

After chatter in the blogosphere, Palin and her husband issued a statement Monday, confirming their teenage daughter was five months pregnant and would be marrying the baby’s father.

Convention delegate Mary Ann Hanusa of Council Bluffs was the Republican candidate for Iowa Secretary of State in 2006 and while she didn’t win, Hanusa says she did earn some votes because she was a woman. ”Not only women, but men also appreciated the fact that there was a woman running for a position, but you have to have some competance about it as well,” Hanusa says. “It’s not just, ‘Oh, let’s throw a woman up and run her for office.’ It has to be someone who has some qualifications to run for the position.”

Hanusa says Palin’s qualified and she’s “excited” Palin is the first woman Republicans nominate for vice president. ”I think it’s wonderful. I think it’s great. I think it adds diversity to our ticket,” Hanusa says.

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John McCain’s 96-year-old mom visits with Iowans

September 3, 2008 By

Early this morning, John McCain’s elderly mother visited with the Iowans who are attending the Republican National Convention in the Twin Cities. 

Roberta McCain The very spry Roberta McCain climbed up a step, stood behind a lectern, and spoke for about two minutes, without notes. She is 96 years old.

"Listen, I’m no speaker, so bear with me, but one of the many reasons that I’m here is because my husband was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa," Mrs. McCain said. "He was always so proud that he was from Iowa and he could tell many reasons why it was such a wonderful state and that’s one of the thousands of reasons why I’m so glad to be with you all."

Mrs. McCain was born in Texas. Her husband, John McCain, Senior, died 27 years ago. He was an admiral in the Navy and their son, the G.O.P presidential candidate, followed him into the service. Retired Colonol Bud Day of Sioux City was a prisoner of war in Vietnam with McCain and Day – who is 83 years old — spoke to Iowans after Mrs. McCain.

"About 18 months ago John McCain was flat on his back. He was out of money He was written off as being a non-candidate. It looked as if things were really bad," Day said. "But the beautiful part of John McCain is he is always looking up and he can get up and fight again…He got up and fought again and won."

Mrs. McCain also noted her son’s rise from the ashes as she thanked McCain supporters. "Another of the 10,000 reasons I have to be here is to thank you all — all of the time and the money and the love that you all have given to make this a successful campaign and to get us where we are today, overlooking the fact that a year ago, these people were so condescending and now, they’re really toting up to him a little bit, have you noticed?" Mrs. McCain said, to applause from the crowd.

Day urged the Iowa delegates to bend the ears of younger voters who he believes are too easily swayed by the speeches of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. "These kids don’t know what’s going on in the world, you know, the reason that you are here and I’m here is because over these years and the reason that John’s out here as our leader is because we’ve acquired a bunch of information as we grew up. We’ve known what to do. We’ve learned a lot of lessons and these kids don’t know that yet," Day said. "…You know there’ve been a lot of real spell-binder talkers out there in our history and not all of ‘em been good."

You can listen to the speeches Bud Day and Roberta McCain delivered this morning by clicking on the audio links below.

McCain, as you may know, is a U.S. senator from Arizona. That state’s other senator, Jon Kyl, is an Iowa native who visited the Iowa delegation this morning, too. Kyl graduated from Bloomfield High School and in 1958, he was elected governor of American Legion Boy’s State, a statewide honorary meeting of high school seniors. "I still have a sister in Des Moines and always enjoy getting back to Iowa and by the way, I thought I was getting back to Iowa after the travel from St. Paul this morning," Kyl said of his trip from St. Paul to the Iowa delegation’s hotel in Bloomington, Minnesota. "You all drew the short straw getting the hotel." The convention proceedings are being held in the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, which is 15 miles away from the Iowa delegation’s hotel.

The McCain campaign arranged for a series of speakers this morning for Iowa Republicans in the Twin Cities. Charlie Black, a senior advisor to the McCain campaign, was among them. "You all know better than me how close Iowa’s been in recent years in the general election. I’ve looked at a few polls and talked to a number of you out there to sort of gauge what it looks like for this time. Let me tell you, it’s going to be close again," Black said. "You are a classic swing state. It’s going to be close."

Al Gore won Iowa by about 2000 votes in the election eight years ago. Four years ago, George W. Bush carried Iowa by just 10,000 votes.

AUDIO: Roberta McCain . 3:00 MP3
AUDIO: Bud Day speech . 10:00 MP3

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Fate of Iowa Straw Poll debated

September 3, 2008 By

The Republican National Convention has approved rules which spell out the calendar of contests in the presidential election year of 2012. Iowa’s Caucuses appear set now, but what about the Iowa Republican Party’s Straw Poll? 

In August of 2007, nearly five months before the Iowa Caucuses, Iowa Republicans held their sort of quadrennial Straw Poll in Ames. The event is held every four years, unless there’s a Republican president seeking re-election. Mitt Romney won last year’s event, with Mike Huckabee placing second. But party big-wigs Rudy Giuliani and John McCain did not participate.

Dave Roederer, chairman of McCain’s Iowa campaign, is in Minnesota this week at the Republican National Convention. "I think that the party’s going to have to take a look at the whole Straw Poll. Even some of the candidates that did participate said in the end they didn’t think at the end they didn’t think that it was a wise use of money and frankly that’s what happened with us," Roederer says of the McCain campaign decision not to participate in last year’s Straw Poll. "We figured it was going to cost a million, a million-and-a-half dollars in order to do well."

Attendance did not reach expectations for last year’s event. Plus, critics of Iowa’s role as the first caucus state say having the Straw Poll gives Iowa not one but two significant contests to kick off the presidential nominating season. "Although I don’t like to admit that, that is a fair statement," Roederer says.

The Straw Poll in Ames is a big fundraiser for the Republican Party of Iowa. Most of the candidates who participated a year ago bought tickets for their supporters, at 35 dollars a pop. The candidates paid the state party to rent space outside the venue, too, where they fed and entertained Straw Poll participants. Roederer has said Giuliani told him the Straw Poll was like a "shake-down."

"When the whole thing started out, it was kind of a fun, festive type of thing but as the importance kept growing and growing, it kind of quit becoming fun and just like another election," Roederer says.

But Stewart Iverson, the current chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa, isn’t ready to say the last Straw Poll was held a year ago. "Who knows?" Iverson says. "..I don’t think it detracts from the Caucuses at all. I think what it does is enhance them because what it does is give people from all around the state to come to one area and hear the people who are running for president. A lot of people like that because it’s all in one day, see all the candidates and meet all the candidates, so I think that’s a plus."

The first Iowa Republican Straw Poll was in 1979. It was a rather low-key affair and George H.W. Bush won over a third of the votes. Televangelist Pat Robertson won the August, 1987 Straw Poll. The next Straw Poll, in August of 1995, finished in a tie between Bob Dole and Phil Gramm. George W. Bush won the 1999 Straw Poll.

 

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GOP candidate says raising money hard to do

September 2, 2008 By

David Hartsuch The Republican candidate in Iowa’s first congressional district says he’s not alone in finding it difficult to raise money for his race. State Senator David Hartsuch, a Republican from Bettendorf, is facing Democratic Congressman Bruce Braley of Waterloo in November.

This morning, Hartsuch told Iowans who’re at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul that it’s been hard to talk traditional Republican donors into giving to his campaign.

"The real question is: Can Republicans win? That’s the big question. A lot of the Republican donors, they don’t want to give to a candidate that they don’t think can win," Hartsuch says. "Democrats have been touting the rise in (voter) registration as an example and saying, ‘See, all these people are out there. They’re going to be voting (for) the Democrat.’ I would contend that the rise in voter registrations is due to having a more aggressive (Democratic) party going out and seeking that registration and that is not necessarily going to translate into votes." According to the latest data, there are about 35,000 more registered Democrats in Iowa than Republicans in the first congressional district. Just since January, Democrats have registered an additional 14,000 voters for their party in the first district, while the number of Republican registrations has remained about that same.

The first district congressional seat was won by Democrat Braley in 2006. Democrats hold a majority of seats in congress and Hartsuch says that means it’s harder to raise money as a Republican candidate for congress. "We going to have to have a party that is going to work more efficiently with regard to campaigning," Hartsuch says. "The days of having the special interest money flowing into the Republicans are over. That money is now flowing to the Democrats."

Hartsuch isn’t alone as he says Republican Christopher Reed, the candidate running against long-time Democratic Senator Tom Harkin, is running on a shoe-sting budget, too, and doesn’t have more than 3000 brochures to hand out to voters.

Lots of Republican candidates in Iowa who are in the same boat, according to Hartsuch. "The party itself is broke. The party doesn’t have money. I was looking at the fundraising of the Republican Party of Iowa versus the Democrats and you’ll see that it’s a good five- or six-to-one spread in fundraising at the party level. I don’t blame our party for not supporting me or any other (candidate)," Hartsuch says. "The truth of the matter is the money isn’t there. We just have to get used to that. We’re got to purify our message and move on."

According to reports filed just over a month ago with the Federal Election Commission, Hartsuch had raised just under $17,000 for his congressional race. Congressman Braley had raised almost $780,000. That’s about 45 times as much as Hartsuch.

Hartsuch has some long-term ideas for turning the G.O.P around. "We have to reestablish our base and define what we are as a Republican Party," Hartsuch says. "A lot of Republican donors don’t even know what we stand for as a party."

Hartsuch, an E.R. doctor in the Quad Cities, was elected to the state senate in 2006.

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